A Bit More Detail

• Anthrodendum considers the issue of the security, or not, of cloud data storage used by anthropologists.


• Architectuul takes a look at the very complex history of urban planning and architecture in the city of Skopje, linked to issues of disaster and identity.


• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Ioannis Kokkidinis, examining the nature of the lunar settlement of Artemis in Andy Weir's novel of the same. What is it?


• Crux notes the possibility that human organs for transplant might one day soon be grown to order.


• D-Brief notes evidence that extrasolar visitor 'Oumuamua is actually more like a comet than an asteroid.


• Bruce Dorminey makes the sensible argument that plans for colonizing Mars have to wait until we save Earth. (I myself have always thought the sort of environmental engineering necessary for Mars would be developed from techniques used on Earth.)


• The Everyday Sociology Blog took an interesting look at the relationship between hobbies and work.


• Far Outliers looks at how, in the belle époque, different European empires took different attitudes towards the emigration of their subjects depending on their ethnicity. (Russia was happy to be rid of Jews, while Hungary encouraged non-Magyars to leave.)


• The Finger Post shares some photos taken by the author on a trip to the city of Granada, in Nicaragua.


• The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas makes an interesting argument as to the extent to which modern technology creates a new sense of self-consciousness in individuals.


• Inkfish suggests that the bowhead whale has a more impressive repertoire of music--of song, at least--than the fabled humpback.


• Information is Beautiful has a wonderful illustration of the Drake Equation.


• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the American women who tried to prevent the Trail of Tears.


• Language Hat takes a look at the diversity of Slovene dialects, this diversity perhaps reflecting the stability of the Slovene-inhabited territories over centuries.


• Language Log considers the future of the Cantonese language in Hong Kong, faced with pressure from China.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how negatively disruptive a withdrawal of American forces from Germany would be for the United States and its position in the world.


• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, notes the usefulness of the term "Latinx".


• The LRB Blog reports on the restoration of a late 19th century Japanese-style garden in Britain.


• The New APPS Blog considers the ways in which Facebook, through the power of big data, can help commodify personal likes.


• Neuroskeptic reports on the use of ayahusasca as an anti-depressant. Can it work?


• Justin Petrone, attending a Nordic scientific conference in Iceland to which Estonia was invited, talks about the frontiers of Nordic identity.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw writes about what it is to be a literary historian.


• Drew Rowsome praises Dylan Jones' new biographical collection of interviews with the intimates of David Bowie.


• Peter Rukavina shares an old Guardian article from 1993, describing and showing the first webserver on Prince Edward Island.


• Seriously Science notes the potential contagiousness of parrot laughter.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little t.com/2018/06/shakespeare-on-tyranny.htmltakes a look at the new Stephen Greenblatt book, Shakespeare on Power, about Shakespeare's perspectives on tyranny.


• Window on Eurasia shares speculation as to what might happen if relations between Russia and Kazakhstan broke down.


• Worthwhile Canadian Initiative noticed, before the election, the serious fiscal challenges facing Ontario.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell points out that creating a national ID database in the UK without issuing actual cards would be a nightmare.


• Arnold Zwicky reports on a strand of his Swiss family's history found in a Paris building.

• blogTO notes that all TTC streetcars will support Presto by the end of the year.


• Crooked Timber continues its examination of Piketty's thoughts on inequality and social justice.


• The Dragon's Tales reports on German surveillance of Germany's allies.


• Joe. My. God. notes the support of the Pope for the anti-gay marriage movement in Slovenia.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the fundamental economic problems with law school.


• Marginal Revolution notes that genetic testing may be coming to the business floor.


• The Russian Demographics Blog maps population change in Poland over 2002-2011.


• Strange Maps shares a map predicting the liklelihood of white Christmases in the continental United States.


• Torontoist notes the need not to forget non-heterosexual Syrian refugees.


• Window on Eurasia looks at continued Russian emigration from Tuva.

Former Yugoslav republics and neighboring Albania vowed to resuscitate their drive for European Union integration after the migrant crisis rocked the region and created the worst political rifts between Balkan states since the civil wars of the 1990s.

The heads of state for EU members Croatia and Slovenia and EU outsiders Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania signed a joint commitment to strengthening the stability and prosperity of the region. They also aim to strengthen ties to the U.S. and seek an expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deeper into the Balkans.

[. . .]

The western Balkans has been stretched by the flood of hundreds of thousands of migrants escaping the violence in Syria as well as refugees from as far away as Afghanistan and Northern Africa. Slovenia and Croatia strained their EU ties after Slovenia declared its intention to build fencing along the two countries’ shared border. The dispute is being echoed across the EU as governments grapple with a crisis on a scale not seen since the 1940s.

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly describes what it takes to be a professional writer.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper considering dust in atmospheres.


• The Dragon's Tales notes the study of a medieval Korean star catalogue.


• Language Hat notes a program to translate Mexican writers who write in indigenous languages.


• Steve Munro offers advice on what to do about Smarttrack.


• Marginal Revolution refers readers to Gary Kasparov's new book on politics, criticizing Putin and much else.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares the latest data from Dawn at Ceres.


• Torontoist has a beautiful picture of the Prince Edward Viaduct.


• Towleroad notes a referendum on same-sex marriage in Slovenia.

• blogTO notes an upcoming group photo of prominent Toronto musicians.


• Centauri Dreams speculates about the sort of starship a Kardashev II civilization would build.


• The Dragon's Gaze has a couple of papers noting the interactions between hot Jupiters and their parent suns.


• The Dragon's Tales reports on Russian nuclear submarine advances.


• Joe. My. God. notes that same-sex marriage in Slovenia is safe and observes the advance of civil unions in Italy.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how revitalizing neighbourhoods can lead to complicated politics, politely put.


• Marginal Revolution considers ways to improve the allocation of water in drought-hit areas like California.


• The Numerati's Stephen Baker wonders if Apple might be able to regain its lost customers.


• Torontoist approves of a Haitian restaurant in a Scarborough strip mall.


• Window on Eurasia notes the complexities of language policy in the former Soviet Union, looks at the institutionalization of Islam in the Crimea, and examines the issues of self-identifying Ukrainians in the Russian Far East.

• The Big Picture has photos of the winter snowtowns in New England.


• blogTO has old photos of various Toronto intersections.


• Centauri Dreams notes how atmospheres can break the tidal locks of close-orbiting planets.


• The Dragon's Gaze suggests Fomalhaut b is a false positive, speculates on the evaporation time of hot Jupiters, and wonders if planetoids impacting on white dwarfs can trigger Type Ia supernovas.


• The Dragon's Tales considers the status of the Brazilian navy, notes the Egyptian purchase of 24 Rafale fighters from France, and observes that Russia no longer has early-warning satellites.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the sociology of the red carpet.


• Far Outliers assesses the achievements and problems of Chiang Kai-shek.


• A Fistful of Euros notes intra-European negotiations over Greece.


• Joe. My. God. notes the progress of a same-sex marriage bill in Slovenia.


• Languages of the World argues that of all of the minority languages of Russia, Tuvan is the least endangered.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the Confederate diaspora in Brazil.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that the larger the American state the more likely it is to be unequal, notes that South Korean wages have exceeded Japanese wages for the first time, and looks at anti-Valentine's Day men in Japan.
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• Out of Ambit's Diane Duane notes how a German translator of her Star Trek novels put subtle advertisements for soup in.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares photos from Rosetta of its target comet.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer is skeptical about the Nicaragua Canal, wonders about Greece in the Eurozone, looks at instability in Venezuela, and suggests an inverse relationship between social networking platforms--mass media, even--and social capital.


• Spacing Toronto wonders if the Scarborough subway will survive.


• Towleroad notes popular American-born Russian actor Odin Biron's coming out and observes that Antonin Scalia doesn't want people to call him anti-gay.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little looks at the forces which lead to the split of communtiies.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that the non-Russian republics of Russia will survive, argues that Putin's Russia is already fascist, and notes that Russians overwhelmingly support non-traditional families.

It helps that the Slovenians, once the undisputed business rulers of the post-Yugoslav space, have suffered a loss in prestige and confidence, and even in the willingness of banks to lend to them. So they are more open to increased cooperation and seeking common solutions to the crisis. One plan that arose two years ago at a similar conference in Bled has taken concrete form. Its name is Feniks.

Originally it was an association of construction companies, the most affected by the crisis, with the goal of penetrating third markets. Domestic economies are so mired in crisis that companies need to look around elsewhere for business – for example in countries like Libya, where Yugoslavia had an excellent reputation.

[. . .]

Feniks (or the companies themselves) can find the money for such projects through, for instance, the Islamic Development Bank, which has a branch in Sarajevo, or it could exploit the increased interest of Turkish investors in the Balkans.

"We have to find common interests. I don’t believe in love among the former Yugoslav nations, because if it exists, we wouldn’t have gone to war. I believe only in common interests,” Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said at a late-May meeting in Montenegro of more than 100 businesspeople from the countries of the former Yugoslavia. There companies from the other countries of the former Yugoslavia officially joined Feniks, originally a Slovenian-Serbian project.

[. . .]

Perhaps the crisis in Slovenia shows what a deep imprint socialist Yugoslavia has left. Slovenian politicians, for example, still have their doubts about the privatization of state enterprises. They want “strategic partners,” not new owners. Nationality certainly plays a role: government-owned Merkator – the most indebted Slovenian retail chain, with an excellent network throughout the former Yugoslavia – has rejected an offer at least five times from Agrokor, a Croatian retail giant and rival, to take over or enter into the company.

The fear of losing a national champion is big in Ljubljana, especially in light of Croatia’s accession into the European Union on 1 July. Croatia is a larger market and Zagreb is a more natural center of operations for large companies (Unicredit has already said it is moving). And if the Slovenians no longer have the status of exemplary pupils in transition economics and the best businessmen from the ex-Yugoslavia, they have a problem.

Home to around 800 different languages, New York is a delight for linguists, but also provides a rich hunting ground for those trying to document languages threatened with extinction.

[. . .] New York is not just a city where many languages live, it is also a place where languages go to die, the final destination for the last speakers of some of the planet's most critically endangered speech forms.

[. . .]

A recent Census Bureau report notes that in the United States, the number of people speaking a language other than English at home increased by 140% over the last 30 years, with at least 303 languages recorded in this category.

Originally home to the indigenous Lenape people, then settled by the Dutch, conquered by the English and populated by waves of migrants from every country ever since, the five boroughs that make up the Big Apple - The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island - are home to every major world language, but also countless vanishing voices, many of which have just a few remaining speakers.

No longer do aspiring field linguists have to trek halfway across the world to collect data on Zaghawa or Livonian, they can just take the Number 7 train a few stops where they will find speakers of some of the 800 languages that experts believe are spoken in New York.

[. . .]

Recognising what a unique opportunity New York provided, two linguists and a performance poet - Daniel Kaufman, Juliette Blevins and Bob Holman - set up the Endangered Language Alliance, an urban initiative for endangered language research and conservation.

"This is the city with the highest linguistic density in the world and that is mostly because the city draws large numbers of immigrants in almost equal parts from all over the globe - that is unique to New York," says Kaufman.

Several languages have been uttered for the very last time in New York, he says.

"There are these communities that are completely gone in their homeland. One of them, the Gottscheers, is a community of Germanic people who were living in Slovenia, and they were isolated from the rest of the Germanic populations.

"They were surrounded by Slavic speakers for several hundreds of years so they really have their own variety [of language] which is now unintelligible to other German speakers."

The last speakers of this language have ended up in Queens, he says, and this has happened to many other communities.

Exhausted poll workers posted the first preliminary results from Southern Sudan's week-long independence referendum Sunday, and an Associated Press count of a small sampling of the returns showed a huge vote for secession.

Sudan's south ended its independence vote Saturday, a vote most everyone believes will split Africa's largest country in two at the divide between Sudan's Muslim north and Christian and animist south. Poll workers counted throughout the night to post results.

An AP review of results at 10 sites in the south's capital of Juba found that almost 96 per cent of the almost 30,000 ballots cast were for secession. About three per cent were for unity and the rest were invalid.

That's only a small sample of the approximately 3.2 million votes cast, but almost all observers believe the south voted for secession. The referendum needs to pass by a simple majority.

At a church service Sunday, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir — a stoic man not known for showing emotion — smiled, gently clapped and swayed during the musical portions of the service.

“We offer a prayer of gratitude for the peaceful voting of the referendum,” Kiir said. “We present these votes to God, who will bring change through his people of this country.”

Residents of western Zambia were barred from gathering – even for Sunday church services – after an attempt to debate secession led to deadly protests.

It was unclear how long the restrictions, first imposed Friday, would last. Conditions were slowly easing, with people able to go to markets and visit relatives and friends Saturday.

But “it is still quite tense with a heavy presence of police,” said Kennedy Sampa, a Roman Catholic priest in Western Province, also known as Barotseland. Church services were not held Sunday.

Two days earlier, activists from the region's main ethnic group, the Lozi, had tried to hold a public debate on the region's status. Police banned the meeting citing security concerns, an order that set off protests. A debate over Barotseland's status has simmered for decades, and is so sensitive that the information minister has banned radio stations from holding phone-in programs on the subject.

[. . .]

The issue of Barotseland's status has gained attention recently because of the possibility the region could have substantial oil and diamond deposits. Mines Minister Maxwell Mwale on Friday issued the first oil prospecting license to a company that will search for riches in the region.

Activists say they want to ensure the region gets a fair distribution of Zambia's resources, and that secession is not necessarily on their agenda.

Companies, including Gorenje, Croatian food and cosmetic maker Atlantic Grupa d.d. and Serb refinery Naftna Industrija Srbije AD, say they’re reviving old ties to develop a new “Yugosphere.” Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia are in discussions to merge state-owned airlines, stock exchanges and railways to re-establish links and bolster their economies.

“I remember a time when politicians criticized companies that did business with the rest of Yugoslavia,” said [Franjo Bobinac, the chief executive officer of Slovenia’s Gorenje Group d.d., the largest appliance maker in the Balkans,] in a Sept. 13 interview before today’s presentation. Executives want to promote “top-quality products from the time of a once- unified state,” he said.

The combined gross domestic product of the six former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina and the breakaway province of Kosovo totals $192 billion, about the same as the Czech Republic and Portugal, according to the International Monetary Fund.

[. . .]

People everywhere may not be ready for Yugosphere, but they are living it,” said Tim Judah, the Economist magazine writer who coined the term. “In the morning they drink Croatian milk, then they watch a program on Bosnian TV, and eat a snack made by a Serbian company that is owned by a Slovenian company, which is about to be bought by a Croatian company.”

Croatia and Slovenia have agreed on ways to settle a border row and pledged on July 31 to resolve a quarrel about Ljubljana- based Nova Ljubljanska Banka d.d., which was barred from operating in Croatia because its Yugoslav predecessor owes Croatian savers $208 million plus interest.

In July, Zagreb-based Atlantic bought Slovenia’s Droga Kolinska d.d to acquire Cockta, the best-selling soft drink during Communist times that competes locally with Coca-Cola. Slovenia’s Petrol Group d.d. purchased Croatian LPG distributor Butan last month. Mercator Poslovni Sistem d.d., the biggest supermarket chain in southeast Europe, signed an alliance with Coka d.o.o. of Serbia.